postID: 7038; title: The Feast of the Anniversary of the Dedication of the Church
no collect_text found
groupKey: secondary
groupKey: other
Array
(
[date] => 2022-10-02 11:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 305409
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => formatted
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2022-10-02 11:00:00
)
3 post(s) found for dateStr : 2022-10-02postID: 231839 (Holy Guardian Angels)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 231839; date_type: fixed; year: 2022
fixed_date_str: October 2
fixed_date_str (mod): October 2 2022
formattedFixedDateStr: 2022-10-02
=> check date_assignments.
dateAssigned: 2020-10-02 (2020)
yearAssigned (2020) does NOT match year (2022)
displayDates for postID: 231839/year: 2022
Array
(
[0] => 2022-10-02
)
postPriority: 999postID: 6901 (The Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6901; date_type: variable; year: 2022
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6901
displayDates for postID: 6901/year: 2022
Array
(
[0] => 2022-10-02
)
postPriority: 3postID: 7038 (The Feast of the Anniversary of the Dedication of the Church)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7038; date_type: variable; year: 2022
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
dateAssigned: 2023-10-15 (2023)
yearAssigned (2023) does NOT match year (2022)
dateAssigned: 2024-10-20 (2024)
yearAssigned (2024) does NOT match year (2022)
dateAssigned: 2025-10-05 (2025)
yearAssigned (2025) does NOT match year (2022)
displayDates for postID: 7038/year: 2022
Array
(
[0] => 2022-01-01
[1] => 2022-10-02
)
postPriority: 1primaryPost found for date: 2022-10-02 with ID: 7038 (The Feast of the Anniversary of the Dedication of the Church)
The Feast of the Anniversary of the Dedication of the Church
Array
(
[date] => 2022-10-02 11:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 305409
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => simple
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2022-10-02 11:00:00
)
3 post(s) found for dateStr : 2022-10-02postID: 231839 (Holy Guardian Angels)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 231839; date_type: fixed; year: 2022
fixed_date_str: October 2
fixed_date_str (mod): October 2 2022
formattedFixedDateStr: 2022-10-02
=> check date_assignments.
dateAssigned: 2020-10-02 (2020)
yearAssigned (2020) does NOT match year (2022)
displayDates for postID: 231839/year: 2022
Array
(
[0] => 2022-10-02
)
postPriority: 999postID: 6901 (The Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6901; date_type: variable; year: 2022
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6901
displayDates for postID: 6901/year: 2022
Array
(
[0] => 2022-10-02
)
postPriority: 3postID: 7038 (The Feast of the Anniversary of the Dedication of the Church)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7038; date_type: variable; year: 2022
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
dateAssigned: 2023-10-15 (2023)
yearAssigned (2023) does NOT match year (2022)
dateAssigned: 2024-10-20 (2024)
yearAssigned (2024) does NOT match year (2022)
dateAssigned: 2025-10-05 (2025)
yearAssigned (2025) does NOT match year (2022)
displayDates for postID: 7038/year: 2022
Array
(
[0] => 2022-01-01
[1] => 2022-10-02
)
postPriority: 1primaryPost found for date: 2022-10-02 with ID: 7038 (The Feast of the Anniversary of the Dedication of the Church)
A Sermon by
The Very Rev. Harry E. Krauss, Dean Emeritus of St. John’s Cathedral, Rhode Island
✛
Sermon for Saint Thomas Feast of Dedication
The Fifth Avenue entrance to Saint Thomas Church
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. AMEN.
A little sign.
A big and exciting challenge.
How many times have you walked up that grand set of steps from Fifth Avenue?
Was the first time this morning or was it the 50th time?
There’s a small sign there, set in the railing.
Have you ever noticed it?
And what about all of you, out there around the world, worshipping with us?
If you looked us up on the website, pulled up the Mission page, the words of that challenge were there also.
Have you had a look at that drop-down?
It’s even in the Strategic Plan which I hope that all of you have read.
But if you’ve missed it, never fear, you’ll see it in the Annual Appeal brochure which you’ll receive this week.
What does that little sign announce about this parish? “Our mission is to worship, love and serve our Lord Jesus Christ through the Anglican tradition and our unique choral heritage.”
That trips off the tongue rather easily, doesn’t it.
But what I want to suggest is that the ministry which the Saint Thomas family has claimed and still claims as our call each day is dynamic and exciting and it offers Jesus to New York and places far and wide.
On this Feast of Dedication we have come together in person and by way of the internet to take stock on how we’re doing.
We’ve come to thank our gracious and loving God for the daily blessings he offers us in this magnificent and holy place and with our unique and lively choir school.
How did we first answer this call?
A little history might be appropriate.
New York first found out about Saint Thomas Church this way.
If you opened your copy of the “New York Evening Post” on the afternoon of October 11th, 1823 your eye might have met this advertisement,
“The large room (late Reading Room) on the corner of Broadway and Broome street, has been engaged for the purpose of divine worship according to the rites of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
The first service will take place on Sunday evening next, the 12th inst.at half past 7 o’clock; after which, the regular services will be held on Sunday mornings, at half past 10; and on Sunday and Thursday evenings, at half past 7 o’clock.”
A single room and the history of Saint Thomas Church begins.
Two and a half years later.
At the northwest corner of Broadway and Houston Street
a procession made its way into a rather plain, sort-of-Gothic church.
Bishop Hobart preached with certainty from the Book of Genesis “Surely the Lord is in this place.”
The first building of Saint Thomas Church was ready for Christian ministry.
We arrived on this corner in 1866.
There were fields here, a few houses, but St. Luke’s Hospital was up the road, and the foundations of St. Patrick’s Cathedral were down the road.
A magnificent brownstone gothic church was built.
It immediately became a landmark.
But more to the point it became a focus for ministry not only to the fashionable families who rented the pews, but likewise to immigrants who were coming into New York in great numbers, the poor who were already here, and to various charities of the day.
As you may know the first service was held in this building almost exactly 109 years ago on October the 4th.
That great brownstone church had burned to the ground on a summer morning in August of 1905.
Even the architect of this great pile, Ralph Adams Cram, was clear about the new opportunities offered to the parish because of the tragic fire.
He was happy to tell the newspapers that Saint Thomas had been built “to the glory of God, not to please the passerby.”
Yet there’s one other place which undoubtedly focuses our ministry in New York City and otherwise.
It’s at 202 West 58th Street.
It’s the home of our unique and inspiring Saint Thomas Choir School.
It’s the place where talent is allowed to grow, minds are encouraged to discern, and young men are taught to share their skills for the pleasure of others and for the praise of the Lord.
It’s the place where the training which gives our ministry a unique quality and compelling tradition, thrives.
However, you may think that a Feast of Dedication is not a crash course in parish history.
Nonetheless, we must never forget that we stand on the shoulders of the parish’s saints who’ve gone before.
You and I must contribute to their witness at every opportunity.
Of any Sunday this is the one when we actually look at our motivation and reasons for being part of this parish.
It must also be the time when we take the plunge to make a commitment to use our blessings, time, talent, and funds to bless others.
It’s the content of the promise God made to Abram which is recorded in the Book of Genesis, “ …I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing… In you all of the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Do you know the story of the mother who shook her son awake one Sunday morning?
She told him it was time to go to church.
There was only a grunt from him.
Back she came in ten minutes, “Get out of that bed immediately and go to church.”
“Mother, I don’t want to. It’s so boring. Why should I bother?”
“For two reasons,” she said. “You know that you must go to church on a Sunday and, son, you are the bishop of the diocese.”
Fr. Timothy Radcliffe who wrote the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lenten Book for 2008 observed if you are only here because you must be, you’re merely here out of a sense of obligation.
Can this be right? Obligation?
Is that all we are responding to?
Then there are others who feel that they should be here because it’s part of their Christian identity, the characteristics of Jesus’ family on earth.
All of us could list things families do together without even thinking twice: barbecues, graduations, Christmas dinners, reunions.
Family members go to family events even though they might find them tiresome and boring.
Here are two examples.
I remember one Sunday after Evensong back there in the Narthex Paul McCartney, of Beatles fame, gave either Fr. Bodie or me his card which he asked us to give to Dr. Hancock.
On it he’d written, “I come to your Evensong from time to time because it reminds me of when I was a boy in England.
Was Sir Paul was giving us a Christian identity card?
By contrast, I read somewhere that his mate, John Lennon, when being interviewed by the BBC once, said that he gave going to church after the Vicar threw him out for laughing.
No desire for Christian identity for him.
Yet what did we hear from Paul in the second lesson? “ You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.”
Just think of it.
Paul knew about you and me 200 years ago.
There’s one more thing about families I don’t want to leave out, however.
Families also exchange gifts.
For the Saint Thomas family some of them might be:
Superb music.
A building that does show us the glory of God.
The priest who listens when nobody else will.
Seeing young men primed to be ready for life’s challenges.
A quiet place amidst the confusion of New York City.
Sermons which might show us Jesus.
Consolation 2,00 miles away when I must stay in because of COVID.
The opportunity to give financial support.
I’ve made passing reference to this, the Annual Appeal.
This gift is one of the ways you can make certain that this extraordinary parish and its mission will be here in another 199 years.
This is an exciting way, yes, exciting, way to directly help make our mission happen.
The details will come to you this week.
But to finish, gift I seem to have left out, is the most important of all.
The gift of the body and blood of Christ.
Simply, the body and blood of Christ received in community, is the only thing which can truly strengthen you and me to do the mission we proclaim as ours on that little sign out front.
Again from Fr. Radcliffe, “…the body of Christ transforms how we belong to each other and therefore who are.” “This community is how in Christ I belong to the whole of Christ’s body, the community of the living and the dead, of saints and sinners, throughout space and time, indeed to the whole of humanity.”
This gift is right here and offered each and every day.
It will be yours in just a few minutes.
How you belong to each other and who you are can be transformed by it.
Now that’s a gift!
Next year on this Feast of Dedication will you be able to say, my mission truly has become to worship love and serve our Lord Jesus Christ through the Anglican tradition and our unique choral tradition?
I pray so.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
